Will Wikipedia Replace Your Kid's Teacher?, The “Blue Screen Of Death” For Education Options Rating

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Obama has been hanging out with Bill and Melinda Gates (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cthulhu.gif) , and other persons who really care about education. Their consensus seems to be that all those people who said that a high student-to-teacher ratio was harmful were wrong, and that we can really think about getting rid of a lot of those teachers and replacing them with on-line instruction. With increasing emphasis on drill-and-grill and other regressive educational techniques, does this not put Wikipedia in more significant role as an educational [ahem] resource?

[Jon Awbrey]

Obama has been hanging out with Bill and Melinda Gates (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cthulhu.gif) , and other persons who really care about education. Their consensus seems to be that all those people who said that a high student-to-teacher ratio was harmful were wrong, and that we can really think about getting rid of a lot of those teachers and replacing them with on-line instruction. With increasing emphasis on drill-and-grill and other regressive educational techniques, does this not put Wikipedia in more significant role as an educational [ahem] resource?

I think this is just one more component of the Corporate Totalitarian Agenda, replacing everything that we have been accustomed to regard as the Public Sector with the Non-Representational Government of Privateerism.

I think a lot of people are being suckered into it out of sheer naivete, but the corporate con artists know perfectly well what they want and how they plan to get it.

Jon Awbrey

[A User]

If Wikipedia replaced teachers you will end up with moronic pop culture drones that believe bullying is the only way to get what they want.



This post has been edited by WikiWatch:

[Milton Roe]

Obama has been hanging out with Bill and Melinda Gates (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cthulhu.gif) , and other persons who really care about education. Their consensus seems to be that all those people who said that a high student-to-teacher ratio was harmful were wrong, and that we can really think about getting rid of a lot of those teachers and replacing them with on-line instruction. With increasing emphasis on drill-and-grill and other regressive educational techniques, does this not put Wikipedia in more significant role as an educational [ahem] resource?

I think that this is just one more component of the Corporate Totalitarian Agenda, replacing absolutely everything that we have been accustomed to regard as the Public Sector with the Non-Representative Government of Privateerism.

I think a lot of people are being suckered into it out of sheer naivete, but the corporate con artists know perfectly well what they want and how they plan to get it.

Jon Awbrey

See, I take a longer view of education, and note that public education as we know it in American K-12, is a relatively recent thing, dating from only about 1850. It comes (basically) from a Prussian idea that if you take kids away from their parents and homeschool-education soon enough, you can turn them into little ready-to-obey-orders-of-the-state brainwashed Hitler Youth. Again, this idea in turn came from late 18th and early 19th century Prussia, long before there was a Hitler Youth. In fact the Hitler Youth itself was just carrying on a fine Prussian tradition that was more than a century old, by then. And which, by that time, had been spread into the school systems of Amerika by people like Horace Mann, who transplanted it into Massachusetts just in the mid-19th century, after which it spread in the US like kudzu.

Wilhelm von Humboldt and his ilk, a couple of generations earlier in Europe, weren't educating Prussian youth in the early 1800's via compulsory state schools because they wanted to turn them into little philosophers. They were educating them, compulsorily, by the state, because Prussia had had its ass kicked by Napoleon and decided it was because the children who came from home-schooling weren't robotical enough to make moldable soldiers. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

So when I see you taking about "drill-and-grill" techniques as being part of Bill/Melinda Gatesian "Corporate Totalitarian Agenda" it makes me laugh so hard it brings tears to my eyes. Drill and grill isn't the corporate totalitarian agenda. It's the ultimate statist brainwashing agenda, and for 150 to 200 years in first Europe and then the US, it's worked so well that you seem not to be aware of it. You think it's sort of the way of nature, with the new business model trying to undo the way things have always been. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif)

Pardon, but thanks for the laugh, Jon.

[BananaShowerMonkey]

Obama has been hanging out with Bill and Melinda Gates (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cthulhu.gif) , and other persons who really care about education. Their consensus seems to be that all those people who said that a high student-to-teacher ratio was harmful were wrong, and that we can really think about getting rid of a lot of those teachers and replacing them with on-line instruction. With increasing emphasis on drill-and-grill and other regressive educational techniques, does this not put Wikipedia in more significant role as an educational [ahem] resource?

Herschel, stop scaring the s*** outta me!

[Jon Awbrey]

Pardon, but thanks for the laugh, Jon.

There are days when your ignorance astounds me.

And then there are days when you are just plain full o' crap.

But it's early yet — I guess we'll see which one it'll be today.

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/dry.gif)

[Peter Damian]

Pardon, but thanks for the laugh, Jon.

There are days when your ignorance astounds me.

And then there are days when you are just plan full o' crap.

But it's early yet — I guess we'll see which one it'll be today.

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/dry.gif)

Non sufficit ista narrare, nisi manifesta ratione probentur

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

See, I take a longer view of education, and note that public education as we know it in American K-12, is a relatively recent thing, dating from only about 1850. It comes (basically) from a Prussian idea ...

Is this comment about Prussian education factual and true? Where do other influence such as British/Greek/Roman models come in and compare?

(Or were they previously only ever aimed at elites and the rest of the population apprenticed to whatever trade or activity their parents were involved in?).

[Jon Awbrey]

See, I take a longer view of education, and note that public education as we know it in American K-12, is a relatively recent thing, dating from only about 1850. It comes (basically) from a Prussian idea …

Is this comment about Prussian education factual and true? Where do other influence such as British/Greek/Roman models come in and compare?

(Or were they previously only ever aimed at elites and the rest of the population apprenticed to whatever trade or activity their parents were involved in?).

There are a few papers here for those of you who want to get up to speed on these issues.

The “Transforming Scholarship” paper was especially considered to be highly influential.

Jon Awbrey

[Herschelkrustofsky]

See, I take a longer view of education, and note that public education as we know it in American K-12, is a relatively recent thing, dating from only about 1850. It comes (basically) from a Prussian idea ...

Is this comment about Prussian education factual and true?

The fragment you quote is pretty factual and true. However...

Wilhelm von Humboldt and his ilk, a couple of generations earlier in Europe, weren't educating Prussian youth in the early 1800's via compulsory state schools because they wanted to turn them into little philosophers. They were educating them, compulsorily, by the state, because Prussia had had its ass kicked by Napoleon and decided it was because the children who came from home-schooling weren't robotical enough to make moldable soldiers. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

Milt, this is one of the biggest howlers you have ever enunciated on this board. The fact of the matter is that Wilhelm von Humboldt and "his ilk" transformed education specifically to encourage independent thought; they taught kids to read and write classical Greek, to compose classical music, and to master geometry. This is hardly what you do if you want "robotic" kids. But that's not the only thing you have wrong here. The Prussian military theorists developed "Auftragstaktik," which was indeed a response to getting their asses kicked by Napoleon. But Auftragstaktik is based on giving independent combat units a great deal of independence and trusting them to improvise tactics in the context of an understanding of the larger mission. It requires well-educated and creative soldiers who have confidence in their own powers of judgement. There is no room there for robots.

[Kelly Martin]

But Auftragstaktik is based on giving independent combat units a great deal of independence and trusting them to improvise tactics in the context of an understanding of the larger mission. It requires well-educated and creative soldiers who have confidence in their own powers of judgement. There is no room there for robots.

Indeed. One of the largest conflicts between the Wehrmacht and Hitler's special forces is that the special forces emphasized unthinking loyalty and obedience, while the Wehrmacht had long trained its officers and even NCOs for independent, on-the-spot decision making capability. Germans are not all of a piece, you know. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

[Herschelkrustofsky]

The Humboldt education reforms provide a useful contrast to the present-day drive to computerize education. Humboldt set about to make the student conscious of how his mind works, so that he might learn creativity. For example, the practice of teaching multiple foreign languages, including classical languages, has the effect of making language a conscious process, whereas one speaks one's native language automatically without having to consider how it works. The workings of the mind are highly interdependent with the operations of language. By the same token, teaching classical music composition means teaching a different sort of language; instead of having specific referents in the world, music expresses ideas which are inherently ambiguous and convey meaning through change. Considering how to compose a piece using this method also causes the student to reflect upon the power of his mind to perform non-logical and non-arbitrary, i.e. creative operations.

Compare this to the brave new world of Obama & Bill and Melinda Gates. They are basically thinking of kids as little portable hard drives that can be filled with data (actually, this is remarkably like the epistemology of L. Ron Hubbard.) Little hard drives do not create anything new; they simply retrieve data. This is guaranteed to achieve "robotic" results.

[Milton Roe]

The Humboldt education reforms provide a useful contrast to the present-day drive to computerize education. Humboldt set about to make the student conscious of how his mind works, so that he might learn creativity. For example, the practice of teaching multiple foreign languages, including classical languages, has the effect of making language a conscious process, whereas one speaks one's native language automatically without having to consider how it works. The workings of the mind are highly interdependent with the operations of language. By the same token, teaching classical music composition means teaching a different sort of language; instead of having specific referents in the world, music expresses ideas which are inherently ambiguous and convey meaning through change. Considering how to compose a piece using this method also causes the student to reflect upon the power of his mind to perform non-logical and non-arbitrary, i.e. creative operations.

Compare this to the brave new world of Obama & Bill and Melinda Gates. They are basically thinking of kids as little portable hard drives that can be filled with data (actually, this is remarkably like the epistemology of L. Ron Hubbard.) Little hard drives do not create anything new; they simply retrieve data. This is guaranteed to achieve "robotic" results.

Back up. The Gates Foundation spent $3 billion in 2009, but most of it outside the US. Most of the education money was spent in the US, indeed-- about half a billion. But that was only 1/6th of it. The Foundation funds education in the US (a relatively small fraction of its funds), but not health in the US. It funds health care (emphasis on vaccines and prevention) in the third world, but not much there on education.

Most of the Foundation's money (out of the total) goes for health issues, not education. Gates' comment on education in Africa is that it's pointless to try to spend money on any kind of education for a child that has TB, HIV, or is protein and vitamin malnurished, and anemic due to malaria and a gut full of worms (causing iron deficiency). His hypothesis is that if you fix or prevent those problems, children will think better, no matter what education they get elsewhere. I think this quite a reasonable idea.

I think your criticisms of Gates' foundation are quite unreasonable.


http://www.gatesfoundation.org/annualrepor...id-summary.aspx

[Jon Awbrey]

The Humboldt education reforms provide a useful contrast to the present-day drive to computerize education. Humboldt set about to make the student conscious of how his mind works, so that he might learn creativity. For example, the practice of teaching multiple foreign languages, including classical languages, has the effect of making language a conscious process, whereas one speaks one's native language automatically without having to consider how it works. The workings of the mind are highly interdependent with the operations of language. By the same token, teaching classical music composition means teaching a different sort of language; instead of having specific referents in the world, music expresses ideas which are inherently ambiguous and convey meaning through change. Considering how to compose a piece using this method also causes the student to reflect upon the power of his mind to perform non-logical and non-arbitrary, i.e. creative operations.

Compare this to the brave new world of Obama & Bill and Melinda Gates. They are basically thinking of kids as little portable hard drives that can be filled with data (actually, this is remarkably like the epistemology of L. Ron Hubbard.) Little hard drives do not create anything new; they simply retrieve data. This is guaranteed to achieve “robotic” results.

People who have troubled themselves to click on any of the links in my Web Vita, or follow any of the numerous references that I passed under their collective noses for the past five years, will know that I have been following and even contributing a little to the literature on IT in education and research since the early 1990s, at least.

There is nothing about the use of technology in education and research that says we have to treat human beings like machines. The sources of that inhumanity issue from the aims and the brains of some people, not from the nature of the machines we use.

What sorts of aims and brains?

Aye, there's the rub …

Jon Awbrey

[Herschelkrustofsky]

First of all, better late than never: Mod's note: I moved the predictable off-topic fracas to the usual location. There.

Now, regarding the use of computers: I ain't agin 'em. They can handily replace the movie projector, the overhead projector, the slide projector, and the pocket calculator, and they can supplement the trip to the school library. They cannot, however, replace the teacher, no matter how appealing that prospect may seem to the accountants.

[Zoloft]

The Humboldt education reforms provide a useful contrast to the present-day drive to computerize education. Humboldt set about to make the student conscious of how his mind works, so that he might learn creativity. For example, the practice of teaching multiple foreign languages, including classical languages, has the effect of making language a conscious process, whereas one speaks one's native language automatically without having to consider how it works. The workings of the mind are highly interdependent with the operations of language. By the same token, teaching classical music composition means teaching a different sort of language; instead of having specific referents in the world, music expresses ideas which are inherently ambiguous and convey meaning through change. Considering how to compose a piece using this method also causes the student to reflect upon the power of his mind to perform non-logical and non-arbitrary, i.e. creative operations.

Compare this to the brave new world of Obama & Bill and Melinda Gates. They are basically thinking of kids as little portable hard drives that can be filled with data (actually, this is remarkably like the epistemology of L. Ron Hubbard.) Little hard drives do not create anything new; they simply retrieve data. This is guaranteed to achieve “robotic” results.

People who have troubled themselves to click on any of the links in my Web Vita, or follow any of the numerous references that I passed under their collective noses for the past five years, will know that I have been following and even contributing a little to the literature on IT in education and research since the early 1990s, at least.

There is nothing about the use of technology in education and research that says we have to treat human beings like machines. The sources of that inhumanity issue from the aims and the brains of some people, not from the nature of the machines we use.

What sorts of aims and brains?

Aye, there's the rub …

Jon Awbrey

Say, Jon. Pray give us a synopsis, yea, verily, even an abstract of your concrete views on this subject. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

I know 'tis nobler to take up arms against a sea of troubles and all that.

[Jon Awbrey]

Say, Jon. Pray give us a synopsis, yea, verily, even an abstract of your concrete views on this subject.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

I know 'tis nobler to take up arms against a sea of troubles and all that.

I was getting around to that, but I'm just a little exhausted and not a little irritable as a result of all that dis♥ening business with the Shifty Media forum — just in case no one had noticed.

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/dizzy.gif)

[Zoloft]

Say, Jon. Pray give us a synopsis, yea, verily, even an abstract of your concrete views on this subject.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

I know 'tis nobler to take up arms against a sea of troubles and all that.

I was getting around to that, but I'm just a little exhausted and not a little irritable as a result of all that dis♥ening business with the Shifty Media forum — just in case no one had noticed.

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/dizzy.gif)

Take your time. No one will die if you wait a week. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

[Jon Awbrey]

Now, regarding the use of computers: I ain't agin 'em. They can handily replace the movie projector, the overhead projector, the slide projector, and the pocket calculator, and they can supplement the trip to the school library. They cannot, however, replace the teacher, no matter how appealing that prospect may seem to the accountants.

'Nuff Said.

No, Really.

'Nuff Said.

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

One development seen recently in Korea were "robot teachers", cute little robots with built-in screen/display operated by human "teachers" who were in the Philippines via cable.

Why employ a teacher at expensive local rates and have to pay them enough to eat and give them somewhere to sleep when all you need to do is employ security officers at your school when kids are already conditioned to stare at TV/PCs for 8 hours a day.

It is an interest thought to consider how our brains are evolving around these unnatural objects and what happens when we are unplugged.

[Jon Awbrey]

The German model of what a research university should be was highly influential on graduate education in the United States, to which we may add the Land Grant model that acted as a moderating, application-oriented influence on both graduate and undergraduate education. But the model that U.S. primary and secondary education progressively followed throughout the last century would have to be the canon of Progressive Education that derived from the experimental school and the educational reforms of John Dewey.

Jon Awbrey

[Jon Awbrey]

If you want a notion of what John Dewey was teaching teachers to teach their students about thinking from the earliest years of the last century, get yourself a copy of his How We Think and read that through a few times.

Like that wasn't enough work for one man, Dewey was also a pioneering activist in teaching teachers to think of themselves as professionals, with all the rights and responsibilities that entails. Look into the history of the AAUP if you want to see how the very idea of academic freedom fought for its place in American educational philosophy during the last century.

Jon Awbrey

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Dewey was more or less the polar opposite of Humboldt, and engineered the overthrow of classical education in the US. Instead of public education being the students' gateway to the world of ideas, Dewey offered "pragmatism."

[Jon Awbrey]

Dewey was more or less the polar opposite of Humboldt, and engineered the overthrow of classical education in the US. Instead of public education being the students' gateway to the world of ideas, Dewey offered “pragmatism”.

No, No, No —

Seriously, you need to do a whole lot more reading on this.

Jon Awbrey

[Jon Awbrey]

Those few pointers to the past are the barest hints of a prologue that will have to be prolonged as we go. They frame the canvass of a work in progress that we imported into the 3rd Millennium to do our best brushwork and our grossest graffiti on. No matter how dim the picture looks in many spots, especially the corners that we find ourselves forced to focus on here, it is still the background of all we do and all we care about for the future of education.

So what the hell has been happening lately ???

Jon Awbrey

[Jon Awbrey]

So what the hell has been happening lately ???

It's hard to know where to start, but one “New and Improved” item on our education and research superstore shelves today has been described as “Academic Capitalism”.

There's a very good introduction to the issues surrounding Academic Capitalism in this paper.

Jon Awbrey

[Jon Awbrey]

A good place to learn about the philosophy of education that formed the main influence on educational practice in the United States for almost a century now would be John Dewey's Democracy and Education. Here are inks to an online copy at Columbia and one of the several entries at Amazon:

• Democracy and Education @ Columbia
• Democracy and Education @ Amazon

The Amazon blurb says it well —

In this landmark work on public education, Dewey discusses methods of providing quality public education in a democratic society. First published close to 90 years ago, it sounded the call for a revolution in education, stressing growth, experience, and activity as factors that promote a democratic character in students.

Jon Awbrey

[Jon Awbrey]

In not unrelated nonsense, er, news …

• Obama Calls for New Education Technology Agency
• Why the Obama Administration Wants a DARPA for Education
• Tim Pawlenty, Testing Presidential Waters, Pushes Virtual Courses to Save Money

[Jon Awbrey]

Obama has been hanging out with Bill and Melinda Gates (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cthulhu.gif) , and other persons who really care about education. Their consensus seems to be that all those people who said that a high student-to-teacher ratio was harmful were wrong, and that we can really think about getting rid of a lot of those teachers and replacing them with on-line instruction. With increasing emphasis on drill-and-grill and other regressive educational techniques, does this not put Wikipedia in more significant role as an educational [ahem] resource?

I think that this is just one more component of the Corporate Totalitarian Agenda, replacing absolutely everything that we have been accustomed to regard as the Public Sector with the Non-Representative Government of Privateerism.

I think a lot of people are being suckered into it out of sheer naivete, but the corporate con artists know perfectly well what they want and how they plan to get it.

Jon Awbrey

While you were sleeping …

Here's a couple of educational videos on the advance of Corporate Dictatorship for those of you who have been dozing all snug in your cribs the last 40 years or so.

That was then …



This is now …



Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/ph34r.gif)

[Herschelkrustofsky]

This is now …

Holy guacamole, Batman -- so much for opposition to "Big Government."

[Jon Awbrey]

This is now …

Holy guacamole, Batman — so much for opposition to “Big Government”.

Everyone believes in “Limited Government”, of course — they all just draw the lines in different places — but what Republicans have always meant by that was, “We don't want the People-Owned Pieces Of Government (POPOG) to put any checks on the Corporate-Owned Fraction Of Government (COFOG)”. But once the COFOG becomes big enough, well, then it's perfectly okay to make it as big as big can be.

Jon Awbrey

[lilburne]

Schools, education, and teaching don't just happen. The kids don't arrive at the school gates, get plonked into an isolation tank, and become hooked up the learning drip feed thing. Rather they drag from lesson to lesson all the social baggage from outside of the learning institution.

[Jon Awbrey]

Schools, education, and teaching don't just happen. The kids don't arrive at the school gates, get plonked into an isolation tank, and become hooked up the learning drip feed thing. …

Give 'em time … they're workin' on it …

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/ph34r.gif)

[Jon Awbrey]

Seriously, folks, I no longer recognize the country or the parallel universe that Milton is broadcasting from, but here in the United States of Alterica we are currently experiencing a Concerted Corporate Coup of unparalleled dementions — and by this “Concerted” I do not say the music is pretty — all of which has been keeping me way too busy with local polidicks to do my duty moderating this thread in accord with my usual standards of revelance.

But I'll be back …

I promise …

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

[Jon Awbrey]

I thought it might be good to recall what we were talking about at the top of the topic —

Obama has been hanging out with Bill and Melinda Gates (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cthulhu.gif) , and other persons who really care about education. Their consensus seems to be that all those people who said that a high student-to-teacher ratio was harmful were wrong, and that we can really think about getting rid of a lot of those teachers and replacing them with on-line instruction. With increasing emphasis on drill-and-grill and other regressive educational techniques, does this not put Wikipedia in more significant role as an educational [ahem] resource?

The question is not about the potential of IT to educate, inform, and even inspire, or at least to catalyze, facilitate, and support the same. That ship sailed a long time ago, and those of us who were all aboard when it left the dock know that its potential has been actualized with all the wimper not a bang of previous generations of educational technology, from AV to TV.

The question is whether some Harvard dropout — and his crew of better lawyers than programmers — just because he made a bazillion bucks with his viral spreadsheet program, really knows more about education than all those saps who actually wasted their time going to school to learn what they're teaching about, and who just keep on doing the job, day in day out, year after year, taking all the crap that our Corporate Owned Government and Corporate Owned Media can dump on their heads while they're too busy grading papers to talk back.

That is the question.

Jon Awbrey

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Believe it or not, there is also a question of whether you can fire lots of teachers and compensate by buying more laptops. That is actually what high school students are demonstrating against in Idaho. It was a budget-cutting plan dreamed up by the aptly-named Superintendent of Schools, a certain Mr. Luna.

[Jon Awbrey]

Believe it or not, there is also a question of whether you can fire lots of teachers and compensate by buying more laptops. That is actually what high school students are demonstrating against in Idaho. It was a budget-cutting plan dreamed up by the aptly-named Superintendent of Schools, a certain Mr. Luna.

Yes, of course, de-professionalizing yet another profession is a constant bugaboo, er, featuraboo that arises from the Corporate Totalitarian Agenda, which is why we are discussing this crusty old theme on the current political scene, but I was getting tired and had to stop somewhere.

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/oldtimer.gif)

[Herschelkrustofsky]

The moment one lends any credence to a "market-based" model of education, then it's feudalism, here we come. There is already a sort of caste system based on which communities can ante up the property taxes to get their schools the necessary supplies, and this will become worse under the "Race to the top" program. One of the smartest things that Louis XI, the "Spider King" did, was to launch programs to bring literacy to the peasantry. This horrified other kingdoms who saw it as an assault on the cherished precept of the feudal system that there should be a helpless and utterly disenfranchised laboring class. Compare the Confederate States of America, where it was a capital crime to teach a slave to read. They were clever enough to know that if you taught a slave to read, he might become Frederick Douglass.

[Kelly Martin]

I recently got into an argument on Facebook over Governor Quinn's proposal to force some of Illinois' 800+ school districts to merge with one another, on the grounds that having so many districts must necessarily be inefficient.

The thing is, I like the small districts. It means that the feedback loop between the school board and the taxpayers is quite short. When your electorate is only a couple thousand voters, you can't afford to ignore even a relatively small group. I grew up in one of the largest school districts in the Midwest (MSD Washington Township, Indianapolis) and the school board might as well have been appointed by God; there was no way Joe Average Parent would have any way at all to get traction with (or even noticed by) them.

Of course there are many many ways in which the school board's hands are tied, but at least we've got the locality of control down right. In school districts, especially elementary districts, smaller is better.

[Jon Awbrey]

I recently got into an argument on Facebook over Governor Quinn's proposal to force some of Illinois' 800+ school districts to merge with one another, on the grounds that having so many districts must necessarily be inefficient.

The thing is, I like the small districts. It means that the feedback loop between the school board and the taxpayers is quite short. When your electorate is only a couple thousand voters, you can't afford to ignore even a relatively small group. I grew up in one of the largest school districts in the Midwest (MSD Washington Township, Indianapolis) and the school board might as well have been appointed by God; there was no way Joe Average Parent would have any way at all to get traction with (or even noticed by) them.

Of course there are many many ways in which the school board's hands are tied, but at least we've got the locality of control down right. In school districts, especially elementary districts, smaller is better.

My teaching experience in Illinois was limited to teaching undergraduates as a Graduate TA in math, but I know that a lot of my colleagues and students were always having to take some kind of standardized test on the Illinois Constitution — maybe as a qualification for teaching in the schools? — so I know that the idea of Statewide standards was not a novelty there. Indeed, I commuted from Normal — don't bother, I've heard them all — a town named after its normal school, that is, a school for teaching teachers the norms of how and what to teach.

I'd hardly dispute the importance of local control — Michigan is currently embroiled in hot dispute with a Power Mad Governerd Control Freak over that very issue. Nevertheless, local control is always conducted subject to the controlling influence of higher level aims, concerns, ends, goals, interests, objectives, and purposes, in short, what the Greeks called pragmata.

But the genius of representative people power — “No Taxation Without Red Herrings”, as Milton would have it — is the very idea that the controllers of the controllers are chosen from the station and status of the controllees.

And that's how the cyber circle goes unbroken …

Jon Awbrey